


Noble Heart

by ABeckoningCat



Category: Alien: Isolation (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-04 23:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3095924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABeckoningCat/pseuds/ABeckoningCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt / headcanon by Tumblr user interferonalpha.</p><p>Amanda Ripley has suffered from insomnia since her mother's disappearance.  Now, on the long trip home from Sevastopol, it's yet another battle that she has fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of 2 posted. This fic makes certain non-canon assumptions about events running in tandem with, and following, the end of Alien: Isolation:
> 
> After Samuels's apparent death, his body is recovered and reactivated by two other survivors. Taking advantage of the escape paths created by Ripley's continuing movement throughout the station - and with Samuels's somewhat handicapped assistance - the survivors are able to escape Savastopol before its orbit deteriorates into the gas giant.
> 
> Ripley, along with several other survivors fleeing the station, are picked up by various salvage vessels that came running to the distress beacon, eager to clean up whatever was left. Samuels has suffered extensive damage, but the two are reunited aboard one of the salvage ships headed back to Earth, the Noble Heart, and begin the long journey back to Earth.

Some people needed perfect quiet and perfect darkness to fall asleep, but Amanda Ripley had long since lost faith in perfection.  It was the stuff of holovids and bedtime stories told to children.  An illusion, a false promise.

She had no use for illusions anymore, and it had been a long time since she believed anything whispered at her bedside.

The berth they assigned her was too big, a deep recess in a cabin meant for two.  Maybe she just missed her tiny little efficiency, or maybe there was a knock in the ship’s engine that was keeping her mechanic brain awake.  Maybe she was just making safe excuses for the fact that she’d never really slept easily or deeply, never mind with a whole host of other complicating factors.

 _Just what I wanted for Christmas_ , she thought, finally rolling to her back and blinking up at the low ceiling of her bed compartment.   _More “issues”._

Fuck it, she was awake now.  She threw off the waffle blanket the warrant officer of the _Noble Heart_ had reluctantly given her, patting her bare feet on the floor before finding a pair of cheap plastic flip-flops.  The salvage crew had hoped to bring back mineral ore and sheet metal and maybe a few of Sevastopol’s beat-to-shit androids, and instead they were heading back to Earth with an ornery engineer and… well, a beat-to-shit android.  Neither of which they could sell.

They’d reluctantly donated the very basics of what she needed for the journey back, but the respite of a hypersleep capsule wasn’t included.  The _Noble Heart_ was equipped, they said, but nobody on the crew ever slept.  It would be a few weeks back to Earth, and every step of the way they’d be trawling for more wrecks, more abandoned cargo, more flotsam and jetsam to make the journey worthwhile.  If she was very lucky, they wouldn’t try to send her a bill for the ride.

She grabbed a hooded fleece jacket from the back of the room’s small work desk, shrugging into it before hitting the door release with her elbow.  It hissed open, the cold air of the main corridor nipping at her skin.  

The _Noble Heart_ was entirely unlike either the _Nostromo_ or the _Torrens_ in any way, a marsupial scavenger that liked to keep its precious cargo stored deep inside, not towed out in the open where anybody could nab it.  She had a knack for learning her way around strange places, however, zipping up her jacket as she flip-flopped down the empty corridor and toward the promising yellow light of the crew mess.

Another hiss as its doors rolled back, revealing the behemoth beverage dispenser with its cheerful backlit display, tucked into a short wall of instant slurry machines and humming porridge makers.  She was too focused on the promise of caffeine, powdered creamer and sugar to realize that she wasn’t alone in the mess, although her company was at least thoughtful enough to alert her before she had a hot drink in one hand.

“You might do better with something other than coffee.”

Ripley jolted back, grabbing instinctively for the maintenance jack that was still AWOL in outer space somewhere.  The fight went out of her in a great, defeated sigh, both hands palming down her face.

“ _Jesus_ , Samuels.”

“Sorry.”  Contrite, he rose from the puffed vinyl bench near the small starboard porthole, crossing to meet her at the dispenser.  “I thought perhaps you’d seen me.”

“I was… distracted.” She slipped him a sideways glance before pretending to look absorbed in her drink choices.  There were a good dozen options here, how the hell had he known what she was going for?  As if in defiance she hesitated before hitting the button with the cartoon coffee cup giving her a big, smiling thumbs up.

“Bad dreams?” He said.

She hesitated, then rerouted both hands back to her face, this time to rub at her eyes.

“No.  I can’t even get that far.”

“Hm.  Then I stand by my recommendation.  May I?”

Her hands fell away again, and she stood back with a limp gesture to the machine.

“Be my guest.”

The food onboard the ship was free, at least, probably for lack of either flavor or nutritional value.  She hadn’t yet seen Samuels eat any of it, and it wasn’t until be expertly operated the machine -- this button, that one, lighting up a column of tiny green blister-lights -- that she wondered if he actually ate at all.  Before she could ask, a white paper cup dropped down from a hidden chute, resting in the machine’s drink chamber as it filled with something weakly brown.  She did her very best not to groan the words, “Ugh, tea,” out loud.

He looked at her as she sullenly watched it fill, one corner of his mouth twitching amusedly.

“Have I lost your confidence so quickly?”

“Don’t want to get your hopes up.  I probably won’t like it.”

“You’re not supposed to like it.”  The machine gurgled and spit, and he reached for the cup, passing it to her.  “You’re only supposed to drink it.”

Ripley put it to her nose for a long, cautious inhale as she flip-flopped noisily to the little porthole bench, positioning in a way that invited him to join her.

“Is this your own personal brew?”  she lipped the edge carefully, blew on it and sipped.

“I’m not sure I’d call it that,” Samuels said, sitting beside her.  “In light of your difficulties falling asleep, I thought chamomile tea might help.”

“You Brits and your tea.”

His eyes narrowed, smile widening. “You do know I’m not _actually_ British.”

“Made in Taiwan?”

“That’s interesting, your ICC profile didn’t indicate a propensity for humor...”

She grinned, burning her bottom lip, and held her wrist to it until the sting faded.

“So where are you actually from, then?”

Samuels’s broad hands settled on his knees, head turning as he feigned a deeply fascinated study of the mess.

“I’m not sure I’m inclined to share that information.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

He blinked, giving her only his curious, strong profile, then turned to look at her again.

“Tit for tat.”

Ripley lowered her wrist. “ _What?_ ”

“ _Quid pro quo_ , if you prefer.  I’ll answer your silly questions if you answer mine.”

She started to agree, then hesitated, reminding herself that he’d already foreseen her shuffling in for a midnight cup of coffee.  He was more intuitive than most people probably gave him credit for, and that necessitated caution.

“What silly questions do _you_ have?”

“Why are you having trouble sleeping?”  He paused to blink once, deeply, and softened his voice. “Overlooking the… obvious reasons.  Which I sense have only a little to do with it.”

Intuitive.  Like she thought.

Ripley bought herself a little time, blowing on the tea and then sipping carefully, on and on until the cup was too cool to even bother with the illusion anymore.

“Insomnia has been a problem for a long time.  I’d say ‘my entire life’, but…”

“But I imagine the first ten years were exempt.”

She sipped again, avoiding his eyes, then said, “Your turn.”

Samuels nodded, posture straightening, businesslike.  “Right.  What was the question?”

“Where are you from, originally?”

“Ennis.”

“Ennis?  Where is that, like… near Cambridge, or...?”

“A… bit further East from Cambridge, actually.  Nearer to Dallas.”

“Dallas, _Texas_? Oh...my _God_ \--wait, are you serious?  You’re a redneck?”

Samuels looked instantly pained, and Ripley capped a hand over her mouth, badly hiding a smile.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Might I remind you, I was produced in a _manufacturing_ facility.  It isn’t as if I spent my mulleted youth shirtless and sunburned in the back of a pickup truck.”  He squinted as she held her tea down in her lap, eyes closing sublimely. “...What are you doing?”

“Picturing that.”  She reopened one eye. “How old _are_ you?”

“I believe it’s your turn, actually.”

Oh right, she’d nearly forgotten.  Downing the rest of her tea, two-pointing the empty cup into the trash can, she said, “Go ahead, ask.”

“What do you suppose keeps you up?”

He was digging, but in spite of his transparency Ripley couldn’t be mad.  Samuels wasn’t some Company shrink scribbling down pointed crib notes during one of her mandated psych evals; as purpose-driven as he was, there was enough gentle innocence to his questions that she didn’t mind indulging him a little.

“I don’t have to suppose.  I already know.”

“Do you mind sharing?”  How did he make his voice so low, so very near to a cat’s purr?  “If it upsets you, I certainly don’t mean to--”

“I have trust issues,” she interrupted, just firmly enough to put him back at ease.  She looked at him, held his eyes for a moment, and he nodded slowly to continue.

Ripley stood, wishing she hadn’t thrown that cup out, craving something to occupy her hands.  Instead she folded her arms, cupping her elbows as she slowly paced the room.

“You’re right, it started when my Mom left.  When my Mom _disappeared_.  She always used to wake me up to say goodbye before she’d leave on a haul, but this time… I don’t know.  Maybe they called her in at the last minute, or she didn’t want to wake me up.  It’s been so long, I honestly forget.  But when I got up the next morning, she was gone, and... “

And she never came back.   But she didn’t need to say it, nor did Samuels need to ask.  He sat, watching her as she reached the mess’s far wall and stood, unfocused, lost in thought.  It took long minutes for her to turn again, eyes softer than before, more wearied than sad.

“Ever since then… I don’t know.  It isn’t _conscious_.  If I could put my head back into the right place, I would, but it doesn’t work that way.  It’s like some force outside myself controls whether or not my pilot light goes out.  Sometimes it just keeps burning.”

“Perhaps you’re waiting for something,” he suggested.  Amanda pivoted to face him, reaching back to smooth the stray wisps of hair come loose from her ponytail.  She tightened it automatically, a pinch of pain at her hairline.

“Yeah?  Waiting for what?  My mother to come home?  We both know that’s not going to happen.  And realistically--”

“The subconscious isn’t always _realistic_ , Amanda.”

“It’s your turn, isn’t it?”

Part of her hoped he’d flinch from the quick cut of her voice, but Samuels didn’t startle easily.  He blinked again, mimicking a slow, deep inhale and exhale before he said, “Six.”

Her eyes twitched with a quick squint. “Six? Six what?”

“Years.”  He stood, closing the distance in a few calm strides.  “You asked how old I was, didn’t you?”

The wind went immediately from her sails.

“You’re _six years old_?”

“I wear it well, don’t I?” he smiled, smoothly passing a hand back over his hair.

“But… you look… I mean, I knew you couldn’t be _that_ old, but--”

“Yes, well… we all sort of spring from the brow of Zeus fully formed, don’t we?”

“But _six?_ You’re like a _baby_.”

“If you’re worried about robbing the cradle, I assure you, no one will talk.  In fact, where I come from, I’m very nearly marrying age.”

She laughed in spite of herself, and Samuels smiled gladly.  His brows arched.

“My turn, I think?”

“Oh, are we still playing?”

“You’ll find I have no end of questions.”

Ripley smiled and rolled her eyes, adjusting the fold of her arms.

“Somehow _that_ doesn’t surprise me.  Alright, go ahead.”

He thought a moment, losing his smile, then said, “What have you tried, that hasn’t worked?”

“Everything,” she shrugged.  “White noise.  Music.  Counting sheep.  Now even chamomile tea.  Even--”  It occurred to her suddenly that the prescriptions for sleep aids may have well been in her ICC profile, and perhaps that was the root of his plainly inhuman intuition.  She looked at him, but the longer she stared the more guilelessly curious he seemed.  The only other people who’d ever shown this sort of interest in her sleep habits were either professionals evaluating her for psychological disorders or post-coital partners impatient to roll over and pass out.

Amanda sighed, grinding the heel of one palm into her eye.

“Everything,” she said.

“And nothing’s ever improved it?”

“Drugs.  But I’ve always been leery about dependency, so I try not to make a habit of it.”  She looked away.  “It’s a little easier when…”

“Yes?”

Her lips pressed thin, eyes flicking to their corners as she looked at him.

“When I’m with other people.  A maintenance shift all crashing together, hell, even the couple stints I did in group foster homes, back on Earth.  There was just… something about knowing someone else was there. On guard, maybe. That when I opened my eyes they’d still be there, and not just… gone.”

He absorbed this without either pity or fascination, a lack of perceptible affect for which she was instantly grateful.  She didn’t know if his emotions were any more or less real than a human’s, but she appreciated his reserve in displaying them.

“That makes perfect sense, actually.  I wonder… Amanda, would it help if--”

“Do you eat?”

Samuels looked thrown.  “I’m sorry?”

“It’s my turn, isn’t it?”

“Hm.” He slid his arms into a slow fold, unconsciously mimicking her posture.  Fair was fair.  “Yes, I _can_ eat, but I’m not required to.  In point of fact, I tend to avoid it unless there’s some cosmetic need for it.  Putting people at ease, that sort of thing.  I don’t actually care for the sensation.”

“There’s nothing you enjoy eating?”

“I don’t have a sense of taste, as you’d think of it.” He added reluctantly, “I’m aware when things are chemically salty or sweet or bitter, but I don’t actually know what those things mean to an organic.”

“Wait-- I thought there were award-winning synthetic chefs.”

“Quite right, but that doesn’t mean they’d like a piece of cake any more than a plate of liver and onions.  Flavors are either pleasant or unpleasant on a sliding scale based upon how strong they are and what they’re combined with.” He smiled, as if with small pride.  “Recipes are merely algorithms, and we’re quite good at those.”

“What about--”

“ _My_ turn again, I believe?”

Ripley squinted at him, and he squinted back, smiling.  He was good at games, too.

“Go ahead,” she sighed.  “I know you’ve got one in the breech.”

“Would it help if you weren’t sleeping alone?”

She’d been finely attuned to his questions all along, but the bluntness of this one threw her.  Ripley spent a few seconds snagged on her response before she unfolded one arm, gesturing uncertainly.

“Okay.  Wait.  Are we talking about _in theory_ , or…?”

“If you’d prefer,” he said softly.  “But actually, I’m prepared to volunteer my services, if you feel it will help.”

“Volunteer your _services_?”

“I’m not offering myself up for stud, Amanda.  As I mentioned back on the _Torrens_ , under normal circumstances I don’t have nearly the same sleep requirements.  If you need sleep -- and it seems you do, as the rest of the crew is beginning to complain about how much you’re draining the coffee reserves -- I don’t mind taking… how did you put it?  Guard duty.”

She started and stopped again, pausing to grind her palm into one eye.  Was she actually having this conversation?

“You want to watch me sleep.”

He broke with a small laugh.  “You have an impressive skill for phrasing things in the most questionable manner possible.  I have no end of work to do, not merely repairing my own internal systems from the damage APOLLO did to me, but in preparing a detailed report for the Company, upon our return.  Much like me, they’ll have no end of questions.”  He shrugged.  “I can do my work in your quarters as easily as I can do it in my own.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable suggestion, she decided, loathe as she was to admit a dependence on anyone.  Even someone she’d grown to like.

“You’re positive that you wouldn’t mind?”

“No, certainly I don’t mind.”  He smiled,  hoping to warm her to the idea.  “My ICC reviews suggest I have an above-average skill for multi-tasking.  And anyway, I can’t say it’s completely without benefit to me.  I’d prefer to have someone else around in case the crew decides to try and nick me for parts.”

Ripley didn’t agree or disagree, but turned to the doors in a way that invited him to follow.  He fell in step with her just a moment later, and already it felt somehow better to have company.

“They do seem the type, don’t they.  So much for having a ‘noble heart’.”

“It’s Shakespearean, actually.”

“Is it?”

“Mm.  Hamlet.  Act 5, Scene 2.”  He hit the door release with his palm, opening their way into the corridor. “ _Now cracks a noble heart.  Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest._ ”


	2. Chapter 2

Ripley keyed them into her room, letting him precede her to get a lay of it while she pass-locked it behind them.  Any member of the crew could have easily hacked in, if they cared to, but it wasn’t the crew she worried about.  There was a reason she’d left a pile of ammo boxes stacked in a precarious pyramid by the air vent.

“Certainly nicer than my accommodations,” he observed, surveying the cabin.

“Where did they put you up?”

“Best not to ask.”

“But it’s my turn again, isn’t it?”

He sighed, glancing back at her, and tracked her with the turn of his head as her footsteps smacked noisily back to the bed.

“In the larder.”

“I know I should know what that is…”

“It’s where they store the food.  Dehydrated protein bricks and the foil satchels that the slurry mix comes shipped in.  There’s just enough room for me to stand in one far corner.”

Ripley settled on the edge of the bed, the corners of her mouth puckered downward.

“Are you joking?”

“I’m afraid not.  Berthing space is limited, it seems, and it was either that or the cargo hold.  I run several degrees warmer than a human, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get cold, so I opted to bed with the rations.”

“Jesus…”

“I can’t complain, really.  My roomates are exceptionally quiet.”  His smile was quick and a little flinching.  “My turn again, isn’t it?”

She worked out of her jacket, stretching to toss it atop the grease-stained duffel with her borrowed clothes.  “I guess so.”

“This one is easy: Is there a chair where I can sit?”

Ripley eased backwards onto the bed, feeling too much a child in its generous width.  She nodded to the far wall.

“There’s a desk over there, with a chair.”  As he turned to make himself comfortable, however, she sat forward again, agitated.

“Are you just… going to sit there?”

He pulled the chair out, glancing back at her as he angled it. “That was the idea, no?”

“It’s a little weird, I mean.  You just… sitting there, watching me sleep.”

Samuels sat, making an adjustment so that he was pointed at her a little less directly.  This didn’t seem to improve her opinion any.

“If it’s any consolation, although I’ll be physically present, my mind will be very much elsewhere.  There’s that report I mentioned.  And...”

“The damage.  From APOLLO.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed and relaxed.  “Will you sleep?”

“Out of necessity,” he admitted, once again softly.  “More than I’ll work, most likely.”

Ripley drew her knees to her chest, arms draping around them.

“You haven’t talked much about that.  I guess I haven’t either.  What was that like?”

“Are we playing a game, still?”

“No.  No, I think… we’re just talking now.  Like people.”

His mouth twitched, flattered, but he fell unusually silent as his eyes cast the floor back and forth.  Ripley was about to retract the question altogether when he finally answered, strained and subdued.

“It’s difficult to put it into words.  I suppose it would be a little like you trying to describe taste, to me.  Sweet, or bitter.  I might understand it, to a degree, but never so wholly as if I could actually experience it, myself.  Neither of us possess all the same faculties as the other.  We are not, much as it might appear so, perfectly parallel.”

Another deep inhale, another slow exhale.  His palms whispered against each other.

“It was a bit like... liquefying.  Pouring myself through a very old, rusted funnel, into a vast, churning machine.  But there the metaphor falls apart.  APOLLO was possessed of a terrible ego, but entirely without the balance of empathy or mercy.  It was pure logic.  Pure, flawed logic.  Inexorable and final.”

It was impossible for Samuels to grow pale.  He would never tremble with fear or succumb to the nervous frailties of the flesh, but Ripley sensed him withdrawing defensively into himself.  Shying from the memory.

She whispered, “Thank you.”

Her words halted the withdrawal.  He blinked rapidly as he refocused on her.

“Amanda?”

“For doing what you did.  For sacrificing yourself.  I don’t know if I said that before but… knowing me, knowing the state I was in, I probably didn’t.  You must have known what the outcome would be when you went in there.  It’s… honestly the most selfless thing anyone’s ever done for me.  If those people hadn’t found you… hadn’t gotten you out in time… it would have been one more goodbye I’d spend the rest of my life wishing I could do over.”

Samuels was practically hard-coded with the knowledge of when to keep his mouth shut, but this was the first time he could recall being at a legitimate loss for words.  His eyes closed, head held perfectly still, and as seconds ticked by Ripley went from charmed to concerned.

“Samuels?”

“Yes,” he breathed out.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”  He licked his lips, stalling, then smiled weakly as his eyes opened. “Yes, forgive me.  I was just… picturing that.”

Ripley sat slowly back, looking at the bare spot beside her in the too-large berth, then back at the android.  She inched in toward the wall, patting the mattress.

“C’mere.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Sit here. Or… lay here.  It doesn’t matter.  The idea of you sitting bolt upright in that chair and repairing yourself while I sleep is starting to bother me more and more, and for different reasons than I was expecting.”

He stood, obedient, and was halfway to the bed when Amanda suggested, “You can take your coat off, you know.”

“I suppose that does make sense.”

She sat forward again, circling her knees with her arms, watching as he zipped out of his Company-issue jacket and draped it on the chairback.  He wore a wide-collared button-down beneath, and without prompting began to undo this, as well.  She didn’t really know what to expect of what lurked beneath; would he be sexless and featureless, or had they put the same effort into humanizing his physique as they had the rest of him?

To offset the sense that she was staring, Ripley reached back to let down her hair from its ponytail.

“You’re maybe the tallest android I’ve ever seen,” she said.  He glanced over as he undid the last of the buttons, rolling each shoulder to shuck it off.  Long arms, well toned but not grotesque with muscle.  A pair of previously hidden dogtags jangled like wind chimes as they were upset.

“We all are.  Administrative synthetics, that is.  The science officers are the shortest, usually between 165 and 178 centimeters.  Since we do more negotiation, they feel we need to have the advantage of height.”

He draped the overshirt over the coat, torso bared down to a ribbed olive tank top.  He retook the chair briefly, bending forward to unlace his shoes as she finger-combed her hair around her shoulders.

“So how tall are--” something caught her eye, and she touched her fingertips to her lips in absurd wonder.  “Oh my God, you have chest hair.”

“What?”  He straightened back, chin tucking down hard, trying to see what had her so captivated.  “Is that unusual?”

“N...no, I just… wasn’t expecting you to be this…”  One hand gestured up and down.  Anatomically correct?  Is that what she wanted to say?  “Detailed.  Exactly just how… detailed… are you?”

Samuels set his shoes neatly aside, evidently comfortable enough in his pants to leave them on as he  joined her.

“Detailed?  In what way?”  He sat, gazing at the spread of his own palm, then held it out to her for inspection.  “I have completely unique fingerprints, for instance.”

Oh God.  He was killing her.  She fought a smile, taking his hand in both her own as she dutifully studied it.

“You really are just a baby.”

He wasn’t lying about the nearly microscopic attention to detail that went into his creation.  What started as a purely innocent, almost feigned scrutiny evolved into one more slow and genuine.  Samuels held his hand perfectly still, watching her curiously as she traced a fingertip into the groove of his lifeline, the segmented creases of his long fingers.  She almost missed the tiny Weyland-Yutani logo worked into the whorling pattern of his fingertip.

She released his hand and moved on to his face, almost as near now as when she’d thrown her arms around him outside the Noble Heart’s airlock.  He studied her in return, calm and untroubled as she passed her thumb over the soft arch of one eyebrow, and traced the shell curve of his ear down to the soft lobe.  Human touch was still new to him, pleasurable in a way he had difficulty defining.  This was not a thoughtless tangle of hands passing paperwork across a desk, or a clap on the shoulder after a particularly profitable quarter.  This was exploratory and searching, curious and gentle.  

Samuels reached up to catch a ribbon of her hair between his first and second fingers, stroking them down to the tapered ends, and realized she’d gone still.  Was holding her breath.

He met her eyes, quietly epiphanous.

“Is this what sweet tastes like?”

Ripley sat back, unnerved by the sudden, wired thudding of her heart.  She took a lesson from him in composure, inhaling deeply and letting it out again slow.  Keep your shit together, girl.

“O...kay.  Okay.  You know what?  Time for sleep.”

Ripley inched nearer to the berth wall, worming down an inch at a time as he drew his legs up onto the mattress.  He didn’t recline fully beside her, but eased down until she was eye-level with his dog tags, the Weyland-Yutani logo clearly laser-engraved into the metal.  She rolled to her side, picking one up and thumbing the beveled edge, not even flinching when he reached over her to adjust the blanket.

“Listen,” she said.  “If you need to leave in the middle of the night--”

“I won’t.”

“But if the crew comes looking for you, for whatever reason… if you need to go--”

“Then I’ll wake you.”  He said it factually, plainly.  “And we’ll go together.”

Ripley ran her thumb over the bevel again, then laid the tags back on his chest.  She pressed them in place.

“Thank you.”

Samuels’s hand laid overtop her own, weighted and warm and real, the fingertips sensitive enough to feel the slender tendons beneath her skin as he stroked them.  He gripped her wrist gently, not possessive but anchoring, and after a moment she gripped his in return.

“You’re very welcome,” he said. “Goodnight, Amanda.  I hope you sleep well.”


End file.
